Here is the top trending news from the world of technology. News that every tech enthusiast should keep a tab on.
1)
Meta’s Horizon Worlds is arriving on Mobile and Web
Meta has announced that it Is bringing its flagship reality platform Horizon Worlds on mobile apps and web. As of today, limited number of people can now access Horizon Worlds through the Meta Quest app on Android while IOS app will be rolled out pretty soon. People can access Horizon Worlds on any web browser at horizon.meta.com. This is a significant step for Meta’s metaverse ambitions as it will make Horizon Worlds accessible to a much wider audience. Previously, Horizon Worlds was only available on Meta’s Quest VR headsets, which is comparatively expensive device. Despite all the hype, Metaverse still hasn’t taken off and therefore Meta would be hoping that this move would encourage people to take interest in Metaverse.
2)
Chromebooks will now receive updates for 10 years
Google has made a big announcement for Chromebooks. The company announced that starting from 2024, all Chromebooks released in 2021 and later will automatically receive software updates for the period of 10 years. This is an increase from the current 8-year support period. As for the old Chromebook users, they will need to manually enable the feature in the Chrome OS settings. This move will help in making Chromebook more secure and safe. It will also help in increasing their lifespan, which spells good news not only for customers wallet but also for the environment. Google must be hopeful that this decision will help in boosting the sales of Chromebooks, which directly competes with Windows Laptops and MacBook.
3)
Meta wants to show ads on WhatsApp
According to Financial Times, WhatsApp is exploring the possibility of displaying ads in its app. This is indeed a significant move as WhatsApp has always been an ad-free platform. Since WhatsApp’s acquisition in 2014 the company has been struggling to monetize the platform, mainly due to its encryption feature. There are a few different ways that WhatsApp could implement ads on its platform. The one way is to charge a subscription fee to use the ad free app while another way could be restricting ads to only WhatsApp Business, which is used by businesses. However, there is still no clarity how serious is WhatsApp in taking the ad route.
4)
X Premium users can now hide their ‘Likes’
If you’re an X premium subscriber then you can now conceal your “likes” from being publicly visible by changing your settings. By making ‘likes’ private, X – formerly known as Twitter – is trying to attract more paid subscribers to its platform. It will also help the microblogging platform in controlling fake news and misinformation on its platform. In the past, Elon Musk has openly expressed his support for private likes. However, it appears that “likes” for Premium users won’t be private in absolute sense. A screenshot shared on X’s official account shows that Premium users’ “likes” will still be visible on individual posts.
5)
Google gives few companies access to Gemini AI
According to unconfirmed reports, Google has given access to limited number of companies to its highly anticipated conversational artificial intelligence platform Gemini AI. These companies are reportedly using Gemini AI to develop new products and services, and to improve the performance of their existing products and services. If there is any truth to this report then this means that Google is inching closer to publicly launch its AI model. As and when Gemini AI is launched, it will directly compete with OpenAI’s GPT-4 model, which has already received great reviews in the market. The upcoming launch of Gemini AI is been perceived as a important move to maintain Google’s dominance in the AI race and to efficiently compete with Microsoft backed OpenAI.